"Good-bye! Good-bye, everybody!" called Jonathan, proudly. "I shan't see you for three days, and then I shall be wearing some store clothes!"
For the first few miles the conversation of his elders did not interest him much. He was so busy watching for the first signs of a railway train that the smoke from every far-away chimney attracted his attention; but after a while, when there was nothing to see but the thick growths of birch and maple each side the road, he heard his father saying:
"Well, Betsey, I think thee has earned this holiday. Thee has had a busy spring."
An Old-fashioned Train of Cars
"It has been a busy time," agreed Mrs. Wheeler. "But all the house-cleaning is done and every stitch of the spring sewing. Since April I've cut and made sixteen dresses and six suits of clothes."
"Did thee read in the Worcester Spy last week, Betsey," inquired Uncle William, "of a sewing machine that bids fair to be a success?"
"A sewing machine!" echoed Mrs. Wheeler. "Does thee mean a machine that actually sews as a woman sews? That's too good to be true!"
"But it's bound to come, Betsey," said her husband reassuringly. "We're keeping house to-day much as the early settlers did. We've found better ways of travel, and labor-saving inventions are the next thing." Then, turning to his brother, he added, "Tell us, William, what the Spy said."